Cloud Shifters

“Instructor Kade will be a great teacher for you, Cadin,” Clare said. “He is quite experienced and from the Core.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty cool,” Cadin replied, imagining what the Core must be like.

The corridor had windows all along one side while all the walls and the ceiling were decorated with images and symbols that represented Glade. They passed one that looked like the ripples on his medallion. The corridor branched off right, but they continued to head straight until Clare turned toward a large, green door. “Here we are,” she said as they entered.

The room was bright and spacious. The half of the room facing the outside was curved and covered with windows that looked out towards the beautiful forest.

Cadin noticed Lep out of the corner of his eye and gave a little wave.

“I have Cadin here for you, Instructor Kade,” Clare said as she smiled and blushed. Instructor Kade thanked her and then walked over toward Cadin.

“Hello, Cadin. Welcome to our class. We were just about to pick out what to name this room before you came in. We figured it would add a nice flare. Right, guys?” he asked the class while still standing next to Cadin.

“Right!” the class shouted back enthusiastically.

This guy is cool, just like Lep guessed.

“Alright, Cadin, why don’t you go have a seat and we can get the naming underway,” Instructor Kade said while giving Cadin a little push towards the class. “After all, we still have a lot of other things to do today. We get to take a tour of the school and the forest, and then later we will talk about some exciting events for this year!”

“Alright!”

“Yeah, cool.”

Cadin found a seat near Lep and smiled. “What’s up?” he said, giving Lep a small shove on the shoulder.

“How did you get here?” Lep asked quietly as the other kids were commenting about the room.

“You saw the twins this morning, right?”

Lep nodded.

“Well twins are usually meant to stay together, so I got switched with one so they could both be with Instructor Nightan. Cool huh?”

“Yeah, lucky it was you.”

Cadin was about to tell Lep about how he was specifically asked for when Instructor Kade began to speak again. “Okay everybody remember we need good behavior. Now what should we name the room?”

“What about the ‘Green Room,’” a small girl spoke out.

“That’s boring,” said Lep. “We should call it the ‘Room of Protectors.’”

“No, ‘Sky Life.’”

Instructor Kade walked over to one of the large white walls and picked up a piece of chalky cloud-stone. He wrote the names people were suggesting across the smooth wall. In the end the group agreed on the name, ‘The Dragon’s Den’ for the room, only after deciding that class name should be ‘Dire Dragons.’

Cadin had always liked dragons. The big ones, the dire dragons lived mostly in caves on the outskirts of the cloud-lands. There were other dragons that were much smaller that lived in nests in grass and rocks. A lot of angels thought of the smaller ones as pests, but Cadin had always loved to catch and play with them. His favorite were the little rock dragons that hid in the boulders around Mist Lake. They were usually grey or silver in color with an average size of Cadin’s foot.

Dragons, unlike angels, were born with wings, though they did not become airborne until they got older. Once they learned to fly, they were nearly impossible to catch. Cadin and Lep always liked to try, but usually only succeeded in getting bitten or singed. Lep didn’t like the rock dragons because they spit fire. He preferred catching the even smaller grass dragons that he developed a fondness for during a memorable internship at Lynn’s Dragon Ranch a couple years back.

They had talked about tracking and catching a dire dragon on their adventures together, but both knew how dangerous the large beasts were. Even trained adult angels usually kept their distance. Nobody would ever dream of riding on a dire dragon’s back like in some of the silly human stories. Angels could already fly and a dire dragon had the neck length and flexibility to promptly devour any creature foolish enough hop on its back.

“Time for a tour of the school,” Instructor Kade said. “But first a warning: any non-winged student caught in these corridors without an adult will be punished and possibly asked to leave the school.”

Cadin was incredibly curious what the winged sections of the school looked like. He had not seen many buildings that were made only for wings before. Most angel buildings were a kind of mixture that allowed for children and adults who did not particularly feel like flying to move around, but with wide clear areas that permitted flight.

“We are going to begin our tour outside and work our way in. Remember to stay with the group. I would hate to have one of you eaten by a wrath on the very first day,” Instructor Kade said with a grin.

Cadin saw Lep look out the window and scan the forest entrance after Instructor Kade’s comment.

“He was just joking, Lep. Wraths don’t live in forests.”

“I know that!” Lep defended quietly, peeling his eyes from the window.

The group stood up and gathered near Instructor Kade, who was standing by a door that led outside.

“This is Yi Field. As you see, it is a nice open area where we do a lot of training.” As soon as everyone was out he said, “It is big enough for large events and games that we hold by the stage on the far end there. We will often combine with the other groups for lessons or challenges here.

“Moving on to the forest,” he said as he started a quick pace across the field and into the tall trees. “We will have a few lessons in here on the plants and animals that inhabit these woods. This is one of the only two forests on Glade, and we must respect all life within it. It is not off limits, but that privilege will be taken away from anyone who does not respect it. There is nothing that is incredibly dangerous in this forest but use your common sense. Don’t go sticking your hands in unknown burrows and the like. Keeping all of your fingers is a good thing.”

“Now, look up.”

Cadin looked with the rest of his class and was excited to see ropes and obstacles placed high up in the tree canopies. Cadin wondered how he could get up to them and began looking around. He could not spot anything near him. Taking a couple of steps to search around the sides of a few trees, Cadin was startled when Instructor Kade took off and flapped his powerful wings. The class watched as he landed high up in the trees near the ropes course, grabbed something and jumped off the landing to glide back down to the waiting group. In his hands was the bottom of a hanging ladder.

“This is how we get you up to the ropes course.” He fastened the ladder to an anchor at the bottom of one of the larger trees. “We take the ladder back up to prevent non-winged students from going up without an adult. It is a long fall and we won’t be doing much up here until we have had some more training. However, I thought that it would be fun for you guys to see it today.”

“Who is first?”

Cadin raised his hand immediately, followed quickly by Lep and then by the rest of the class.

“Cadin, go ahead. Just stay on the platform when you reach the top.”

The ladder shook as he began his ascent. The tree was taller than he had imagined, and when he reached the top, he caught his breath. From the platform, he could see half of the cloud-land of Glade.

Cadin heard Lep close to the top of the ladder and went to go help him. “This is so cool Lep, you have to see this!”

Grabbing the back of his shirt, Cadin lifted Lep up to the large platform. Lep spun around several times before Cadin called him over to help the rest of the kids up the last few rungs. As soon as everyone was up, Instructor Kade flew up again and landed loudly on the far corner of the platform. Green Aura angels were not known for their stealth and grace.

“Welcome to the ‘Treetops,’” Instructor Kade said, gesturing with open arms. “This is one of the highest platforms on the Treetop Course. We will get around to some training drills up here both before and after you all have wings. The Treetop Course spreads through half of the forest, and many of the obstacles take quite a long time to master. There are several school arm badges that can be earned here.”

Cadin hadn’t been listening too closely as he was trying to see where all the platforms were located. Other kids asked about the arm badges when Lep gave him a little push. Cadin stuck out his tongue at Lep but returned his attention back to Instructor Kade.

“We will talk more about the badges later. For now, enjoy the view for a couple of minutes before we head back down.”

The rest of the tour outside was not as dramatic as the Treetops, but still interesting. There was a medium sized pond at the edge of the forest that was pretty, but Cadin determined that it was not for swimming as it was filled with algae, fish, logs and little cloud-creatures. Mt. Vera was in clear view, however too far away to be used much for school activities. The group re-entered the building at the main entrance.

“Before we enter the winged section of the school—a reminder,” Instructor Kade paused and looked back at the class. “This may be the only time that you see this side of the building until you get your wings. I think it is important for you to see, but want to impress that it can be dangerous. Stick close to the walls. Absolutely no pushing and no straying away from the group.”

Cadin slapped Lep excitedly on the back with a big grin on his face as they moved forward. They reached a turn in the corridor and the walls seemed to melt away. The wall to the right was gone completely and the floor to the edge of the walkway dropped twenty feet down. Likewise, the ceiling rose and arched gracefully above them. Angels were flying through to various landings throughout the large, tan corridor.

“As you can see, this corridor was designed to not only accommodate, but necessitate flying. You learn to control your takeoffs and landings on this side of the building. Now, obviously we can’t go into the classrooms,” Instructor Kade said, pointing at the entrances fifteen and twenty feet below or above. “However, we can peek at the training gym.”

“I bet that we could make it through this place without wings,” Cadin said quietly to Lep.

Lep was about to answer when another boy took them by surprise.

“I bet you’re right. Did you see that there are some pads on the floors?” a brown headed boy said. “I bet it is for the angels that are not great flyers yet,” he said with a chuckle.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Cadin said looking down over the edge. “We could probably use the pads to land on. Though I am not sure how we would make it up to the doors on the other side,” he continued, pointing at the landings that were a good distance up the wall.

“My name is Cadin by the way, and this is my best friend, Lep.”

“I’m Vincent, and these guys behind me are Xeno,” Vincent said, tapping a beautifully dark-skinned boy with bright yellow eyes, “and Treven,” pointing at a boy with dark hair and light eyes. Treven said, “Hi,” and Xeno gave a wave.

“Oh yeah, you guys were in Instructor Cunningham’s class in Court.” Glade was small enough that Cadin recognized most of the students his age, but not all of them. Cadin noticed Instructor Kade’s eyes on the group of boys and decided now would not be the best time. As quietly as he could he whispered, “We should finish the tour now. We can always come back later. There is no one that guards the corridors.”

“Take a left here, everyone,” Instructor Kade said, blocking the straight path and ushering everyone through.

Cadin hurried through the doorway leading to the center of the school, followed closely by the other four guys.

“Wow.”

“Cool.”

Cadin looked around at the huge, white room. It was roughly the shape of a large triangle with a high domed ceiling. It had many ramps without railings attached to the walls at different angles. Ropes were attached to the ceiling and secured to one of the walls near a ramp. The group was standing on the entrance platform, and like the corridor, the rest of the floor fell away about ten feet below them. Cadin made his way to the edge of the platform to examine the floor below. It seemed to be uneven and he could not make out the exact shape. There were different sizes and types of pads that littered the floor, making it look quite cushioned.

“I know it looks soft,” Instructor Kade said, shocking Cadin. “But imagine being in a mock battle thirty feet high and your opponent finds a way to fold one of your wings so you hit that floor in a death spiral.” His voice was loud enough for the whole class to hear.

Cadin turned around to face Instructor Kade but kept glancing back at the padded floor.

“Welcome to the School Center. It is divided into four large rooms. This is the ‘Cloud Gym’ used for indoor training for students with wings. The gym for non-winged students is connected to our right. The room across from us is the Cafeteria. And the Gathering Hall is the large room to our left. It is the last room making up the School Center and where we gather for whole school assemblies.”

“Let’s continue through and head to the cafeteria.”

Several students turned around and began to walk out the door that the group had come in by.

“Wait,” Instructor Kade said while grabbing a pulley and lowering a walkway that crossed over the padded pit and landed by the far door. “This way is faster.”

Cadin had the urge to launch himself into the pit below, wondering if it was as painful as Instructor Kade said it was. There was a slight hold up in front of him, and Cadin decided to take advantage of the situation.

Pretending to trip, Cadin let himself fall off the walkway into the pit. The fall took longer than he had anticipated, and yet everything zoomed by him very quickly.

Thump! Cadin heard his body slam onto the mats before the pain radiated through his body.

He gasped for breath, struggling to get air back into his lungs. The thrill of the fall was quickly replaced by panic as he opened his eyes to find he was surrounded by padding. He heard the muffled flutter of wings and felt a hand on his shoulder. He grasped the arm and tried to climb up the padding while being pulled up through five feet of mats.

Upon breaking the surface, Cadin took a deep breath before considering Instructor Kade’s sharp eyes. There was a cheer from the students on the walkway above.

“Enough fooling around,” Instructor Kade said smoothly. The smallest twitch played in the corner of his mouth. Cadin couldn’t decide if it was out of concern, anger, or something else.

“I tripped.”

The twitch at the corner of Instructor Kade’s mouth got bigger and began to look like a smirk. “Nice try, Cadin?”

He looked down and away from the searing gaze.

“Let’s go. No more accidents today, agreed?” Instructor Kade said while stepping up on a small platform above the padded pit and holding a hand out to Cadin.

“Agreed,” Cadin answered, grabbing hold. Instructor Kade launched into flight and was back on the walkway in a flash.

The other gym was not nearly as impressive looking. More than half of the floor was solid, with only a small pit full of pads below some high obstacles. There were some ropes, ladders, and higher walkways with railings, but it was quite apparent that this gym was designed for drills without flying.

“Occasionally the winged students will use this gym to practice ground drills, but, for the most part, this Small Gym is used by the younger students. You are all allowed,” Instructor Kade said while looking at Cadin, “to check this gym out for a few minutes before we head to the Cafeteria for lunch.”

Everyone quickly dispersed to explore the gym and test which equipment could be reached by hand. Cadin spotted the largest pad in the gym and pulled Lep over to explore it with him. A blue pad that was nearly the height of the boys covered a good portion of the corner of the room. Above it was many ladders that not only lay vertically against the walls but in many different angles, some thirty feet above the large blue pad.

“That’s the ‘Ladder Master Challenge,’” someone said, causing Cadin and Lep to jump. Cadin turned and saw Vincent, Treven, and Xeno standing just behind them and staring up at the many ladders.

“How do you know what it’s called?” Cadin asked.

“My older brother told me about it. He says that it is one of the school challenges that everyone plays during their free time before lunch. There are several different ways to play. One way is to challenge someone one on one. Each person starts on either the red or blue ladder,” Vincent said pointing to the ladders that touched the ground at either end of the blue pad. Cadin noticed that ladders had colored stripes running up the middle of the legs and rungs. He looked up at the ladders higher on the walls, and at the ones suspended in air and saw that they were colored as well.

Vincent followed Cadin’s gaze and continued. “Each player has to stay on their color ladder and try to be the first to retrieve the yellow flag, which changes locations with each game.” Cadin spotted the flag up twenty feet from the ground, hanging from a ladder that traversed above the ground from one wall to the other. “The yellow colored ladders can be used by either player.

“My brother was unstoppable at this game, and I intend to uphold the tradition,” Vincent said puffing out his chest.

“All right then,” Cadin said, smiling, “I challenge you, ‘Vincent the Unstoppable’ to a Ladder Master Game.”

Vincent smiled back and ran to the red ladder, “Xeno, you call the start.”

Cadin quickly caught hold of the blue ladder and looked up. His path would take exactly six ladders, three vertical, one angled and two horizontal to get to the yellow flag. Vincent’s quickest path would be only four ladders, though one was quite long. Cadin looked desperately for a quicker blue path and only found one possible option before looking at Xeno for the signal to start.

“Go!”

Cadin launched up the first ladder and reached for the rungs on the second horizontal ladder. Swinging across the rungs like they were monkey bars, Cadin noticed that Vincent was already past his second ladder and getting onto his third. Cadin pushed harder but decided that to beat Vincent he had to take the fewer ladder option. He climbed the third to fifteen feet above the ground, and reached for the fourth ladder, but instead of swinging underneath to reach the fifth blue ladder that would take him to the yellow ladder with the flag, Cadin took the time to pull himself up on top of the horizontal ladder that was still five feet below the flag, and ten feet away.

Cadin heard Lep moan at what looked to be his defeat, as Vincent began his cross on the final ladder toward the flag. Cadin secured his footing on the first two rungs of the ladder and ran, not thinking about what would happen if either of his feet missed their marks. He launched himself off the ladder, air whipping by his face.

Cadin remembered many things happening at the same time: the feel of the flag as his outstretched hand grasped tightly around it, Vincent’s face as his mouth dropped at the sight of Cadin flying without wings to steal his victory, and the realization that he would have to for the second time in less than an hour land on a floor pad far below him.

A sharp pain shot through Cadin’s chest as the wind was knocked out of him. He thought that he must have also bumped his head because of the loud ringing in his ears. When he sat up, he identified the ringing as cheering from the onlookers. He was still holding the flag. Not only were his classmates, the Dire Dragons cheering, another group was also clapping. Cadin noticed that Instructor Zephran was standing next to Instructor Kade and both were clapping as well.

Apparently, there were no hard feelings on Vincent’s part as he had made his way back down the ladders to Cadin and congratulated him.

“Nice, job! However, there is no way you will beat me this time!” Vincent said

“Give me a minute,” Cadin said, trying to regain his breath.

“No problem.” He spun around and pointed at Treven.

Challenges ensued and a large line formed under the ladders.

Cadin lay sprawled in-between two mats that were far enough away from the big blue pad that he didn’t get trampled by on-lookers. He found an inconspicuous and comfortable spot in-between the mats to rest. His ribs throbbed every time he took a breath, but he did not want to appear weak to the other students.

While sinking down further into his hiding spot to avoid being spotted and challenged to another Ladder Master game, Cadin heard someone talking from close behind him.

“I’m glad that your group entered the gym in time to see the first battle of the season,” Instructor Kade said.

A woman’s laugh followed, and though he couldn’t see her, Cadin decided that it must have been from Instructor Zephran.

“Yes.” She answered with a smile behind her voice. “You have some competitors in your class this year. I must work especially hard if my students are going to win challenges.”

Cadin was beginning to feel cramped between the mats. If he got up now, he would miss out on the rest of the conversation between the two instructors and they would probably see him and know that he had overheard them. He didn’t care too much, it was not like he had heard anything that he shouldn’t have.

“Even with all your focus, Zephran, I don’t think that your group has a chance against mine this year. I mean, you saw Cadin launch himself through the air to grab the flag—and the boy that he beat was fantastic at getting up those ladders. Cadin did what he had to do to win. He is a lot like his father was in the Core.”

Those last words froze Cadin in his attempt to sit up. His dad had never talked about his time in the Core, always brushing off Cadin’s questions and saying that they would talk about it when he got older. People always talked about his dad regarding his amazing armor, or the fact that he had developed a green Aura while living on a blue cloud-land, but nobody talked about his father in the Core. Cadin had just assumed that not much worth talking about had happened.

“You worked with his father in the Core?”

“I had heard of him upon entering,” Instructor Kade said softly. Cadin strained to listen. “There are not many who get in and have not heard of Talvarian of Ansford. I was even able to work under him a bit before he learned that his wife was expecting a child. Many were sad that Talvarian retired; but of course, no one could blame him for leaving at a time that was as peaceful as we have seen in many years. Especially after he played such a large role in establishing that peace.

“I was shocked when I arrived here to find that Talvarian had moved his family to Glade. I must admit that I am curious to see what his son is capable of. That’s the reason I requested his transfer into my class. You will never guess what he did in the Cloud Gym.”

“Well, if he is anything like you,” Instructor Zephran said in an even quieter voice, “he decided to test out the drop.”

“How did you know about that?” Instructor Kade asked.

“I had only just entered Glade Commons when you were in your final year in Galen. When we were on our school tour, Instructor Beghan who had just transferred from Galen told us the story about you swan diving off the balcony in the middle of your first year. He also told us that no one would be crazy enough to try that again. I agreed with him, looking down at the drop. Most students with wings don’t even go near that edge until they have some control over their flying.

“So, was Cadin even crazier than you to attempt that on his very first day?”

“Crazy enough to try it—yes. Stupid enough to turn it into a swan dive so that everybody would know that he did it on purpose—no. He pretended to trip.”

“How do you know that he didn’t actually trip?”

“As the only other non-winged angel to have ever attempted the fall, it was easy to recognize the curiosity and thrill in his eyes as he dropped. There was no surprise or worry in his expression.”

“I see,” Instructor Zephran said. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

“I don’t see why you shouldn’t.”

“Why did you leave the Core?”

“Ah, an interesting answer to that one.”

“I’m all ears.”

“I didn’t.”

“What?” Instructor Zephran exclaimed. Cadin had also taken a shocked breath but managed to keep quiet. He couldn’t believe that he had thought of getting up and missing the conversation.

“Yes, they stationed me here at the school.”

“Explain, please.”

“For another time, I think. We should get these kids to the Cafeteria before it closes.” Then loud enough for the whole class to hear Instructor Kade called out, “Everyone, time to eat lunch. You need to exit through the blue door.”